News & Media

When a patient is prescribed the wrong antibiotic to treat a bacterial infection, it’s not necessarily the physician who is at fault. The current antibiotic assay — standardized in 1961 by the World Health Organization and used worldwide — is potentially flawed.

A new study led by scientists at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) describes a technology that could lead to new therapeutics for traumatic brain injuries. The discovery, published in Nature Communications, provides a means of homing drugs or nanoparticles to injured areas of the brain.

The Center for Nanomedicine enthusiastically welcomes two top-ranked research and clinical scientists as new members of our center. Both will participate as inter-institutional adjunct professors. Their expertise complements CNM biomedical research programs to identify the causes of disease at the nanoscale and molecular level needed to develop more effective diagnostics and therapeutics.

Physiological processes in the body are in large part determined by the composition of secreted proteins found in the circulatory systems, including the blood. Each of the hundreds of proteins in the blood has a specific life span that determines its unique range of abundance. In fact, measurements of their quantities and activities contribute to many clinical diagnoses. However, the way in which normal protein concentrations in the blood are determined and maintained has been a mystery for decades.

Bacteria are pretty wily creatures. Take for example, an organism such as Salmonella, which succumbs to antibiotics in lab tests, but can become highly resistant in the body.
It is an example of what UC Santa Barbara biologist Michael Mahan refers to as the Trojan horse strategy. Identified through new research conducted by Mahan and his colleagues, the Trojan horse strategy may explain why antibiotics are ineffective in some patients despite lab tests that predict otherwise. The research findings appear in the journal EBioMedicine.

We are pleased to announce a new member of the CNM and our second inter-institutional adjunct professorial position. Dr. Jeffrey W. Smith, a world expert in protein proteolysis in health and disease has joined the CNM effective August 1, 2015. “We are delighted to have Jeff among our faculty, he is an exceptional biomedical researcher and a key collaborator in many of the ongoing CNM research projects at UCSB.” Said Dr. Jamey Marth, director of the CNM. Dr. Smith is a senior faculty member of the Sanford-Burnham Prebys (SBP) Medical Discovery Institute. “I am pleased to join the CNM, it is an exceptional team of biomedical scientists working at the forefront of understanding and treating diseases that affect millions of humans. Our collaborative work in sepsis research for example, is leading to new discoveries that are transforming our understanding of this deadly syndrome. I am also excited to contribute to CNM projects on diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases, and autoimmune diseases. In addition, the magnificent research of Dr. Erkki Ruoslahti, co-founder of the CNM, is leading the way to new and more effective nanoparticle-based treatments of cancer. The CNM represents a unique and successful combination of technologically inclined and biomedically relevant research, and is an unparalleled research institute at UCSB.”

Our partner institute the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute has received a gift of $100 million from prominent San Diego developer, philanthropist, and Sanford-Burnham honorary trustee Conrad Prebys. This is the largest donation ever made by Prebys and will be used to further implement the Institute’s 10-year strategic vision to accelerate the delivery of innovative new treatments that will have a tangible impact on improving human health. “A gift of this magnitude is significant in many ways,” said Sanford-Burnham Chief Executive Officer Perry Nisen, M.D., Ph.D. “It enables us to conduct translational research to advance laboratory discoveries and clinic-ready drug candidates further along the development pipeline, progressing toward therapies, preventions, and cures for patients who desperately need them. We are profoundly grateful to Conrad Prebys for this extraordinary gift.”

In recognition of Prebys’ contribution, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute will now bear his name, along with the other Institute namesakes T. Denny Sanford and Malin Burnham. Effective June 24, the new name is now the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute.

For the third consecutive year, the Wille Family Foundation has provided a generous donation to the Center for Nanomedicine. “We are very appreciative that the Wille Family Foundation has chosen the Center for Nanomedicine as a recipient of its philanthropic efforts. In the era of fewer federal research dollars available, funding of biomedical research has been increasingly supported by philanthropic organizations.” said Dr. Jamey Marth, Co-Founder of the CNM. “This gift will promote the unique research and development programs at CNM focused on achieving more effective treatments and cures for diseases and syndromes such as sepsis, autoimmunity, cancer, and diabetes.”

Scientists at the Center for Nanomedicine, in collaboration with researchers at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute and UCSB, have designed a nanoparticle that has unique — and important — properties. Spherical in shape and silver in composition, it is encased in a shell coated with a peptide that enables it to target tumor cells. What’s more, the shell is etchable so those nanoparticles that don’t hit their target can be broken down and eliminated. These research findings are published in the journal Nature Materials.

The Wille Family Foundation has provided another generous donation to the UCSB Center for Nanomedicine (CNM). Their donation will greatly facilitate the ability to move forward to support scientists and their research on grievous disease mechanisms and the development of nanomedicine-based treatments, as well as enable further fundraising efforts. Dr. Marth and all of the members of the CNM extend their deep appreciation and gratitude to the Richard Wille and the Wille Family Foundation for this generous and timely donation.

The Center for Nanomedicine has received a generous donation from the Djernaes Telos Foundation of Santa Barbara. This gift recognizes Christina A. Djernaes who passed away December 20, 2012 after a battle with cancer. CNM Co-Founders Erkki Ruoslahti and Jamey Marth met with Christina after her diagnosis and spoke at length on new technologies and treatments involving nanomediciine that may ultimately provide a cure. It is with sadness and disappointment that Drs. Marth and Ruoslahti learned of Christina’s passing in 2012. “The battle to conquer cancer will continue, it is inevitable that we will win.” said Dr. Marth. “The courage, spirit and generosity of people such as Christina guide us and motivate us to work harder and to never give up. Today, as we remember Christina, we extend out best wishes to her family and friends, and express our thanks to the Djernaes Telos Foundation for their support of us in our search for a cure.”

Erkki Ruoslahti, M.D., Ph.D., co-founder of the CNM, and his laboratory have published a groundbreaking study in which they have designed a novel peptide capable of penetrating tumors for therapeutic treatment. A major problem in the treatment of cancer is getting anti-cancer drugs both to the site of the tumor and in contact with all cancer cells of the tumor. Their results recently published show that a tumor-specific tissue-penetrating peptide can be constructed de novo from known sequence elements. This principle may be useful in designing tissue-penetrating peptides for cancer and other diseases.